The Jules Marriner Shed

Click the title to download the photostory.The Photostory is not a substitute for the book but can be used to display the images as you read the story to the children.

Teaching Ideas:Write a story about another meat eating animal who is vegetarian. A lion or a tiger could bring up some interesting results.

Ask the children to retell their story in their own words. Use Barebones of the story as a prompt.

Read the story with the children, show images and use Alan Peat's Sentence Book to 'play' with sentences. The children can experiment with different sections of the book creating effective sentences.

When she was younger, Jules wanted to be the fifth member of Abba, but due to vocal tunelessness, she was forbidden. Surrounded as she was by a creative and talented family, she decided she had better learn to draw. After a disastrous couple of years studying Fashion at Epsom, (the gold pixie boots and leopard skin flares were frowned upon) and a stint making costumes for Panto she found her niche with Illustration and Graphic Design. At the University of Plymouth she met a great children’s book author/illustrator called Simon James. It changed her life. Throwing aside everything in her previous life, she took up writing and illustrating her own stories and one of the first was Vincent and the Vampires. To cut a long and somewhat dull story short, she lived in lots of cities and then realised she really wanted to live up a tree with some orang-utans, so she moved to the Isle of Wight. Sadly, Orang-utans are not native to the south coast of England, but there are LOADS of trees to climb so she spends her days writing and drawing and being assisted by two Chihuahuas, one short, fat and hairy, and the other short, thin and hairy. Neither can climb trees.

Fairy Phoebe Whiling Away the Hours

Fairy Phoebe Whiling Away The Hours is a beautiful watercolour that can be used as a writing stimulus for a fantasy story. The children can describe Phoebe, they can describe this scene, write a narrative with Phoebe as the main character. They could write what happens next or create a series of images showing what happens next.